Impact of alginate on the growth of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii through commensalism with Bacteroides

To investigate the prebiotics for butyrate producing bacteria such as Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, we evaluated prebiotic candidates using a pH-controlled single-batch fermenter as a human gut microbiota model.The growth cultures were analyzed by high-throughput sequencing of amplicons derived from the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene and metagenomic analysis.The genome of a F. prausnitzii strain was sequenced in order to investigate the characteristics of Faecalibacterium that can assimilate alginate oligosaccharides (AOSs).We assess whether the genes involved in the utilization of AOSs are derived from F. prausnitzii using metagenomic analysis.